Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

None of the questions that have been asked by Senator Cameron or Senator Milne just now relate in any way to the question before the chair, which is the amendment that was moved by Senator Singh on behalf of the Labor Party to rebadge the carbon tax. The government have made very clear that we do not support the amendment that was moved by the Labor Party.

What is happening here now is the Labor Party and the Greens are desperately trying to filibuster a debate that has been going on for years. This bill has come before the Senate for the third time. All of these issues have been traversed in great detail in Senate estimates, in Senate committee inquiries, in repetitive debates in this chamber over the past 10 months, and these are all issues that were canvassed in some great detail in the lead-up to the last election. The Australian people made a judgement at the last election that they wanted the carbon tax gone. You can jump up and down in here for as long as you want, trying to keep this debate going because you are desperately trying to keep a tax that the Australian people have voted to get rid of, but the government is not going to be a party to this. We are not going to be a party to this attempt by Labor and the Greens to keep going with an ongoing and unnecessary filibuster. We should get on with this, vote on the amendment that is before the chair, vote on the other amendments, and then deal with the legislation as a whole.